Stories behind the Great Traditions of Christmas by Ace Collins

Filled with informative stories and legends, many of the traditions that we blindly participate in at Christmas are unpacked and the real meanings unfolded in this pretty little hardcover book. It would make a fun little Christmas gift given early in the season so that many of the stories could be read before Christmas. Perhaps new traditions would be put in place as the real reasons are discovered.

I was surprised at some of the history that was revealed in this book. Some of it is the stuff of legends and a bit fantastical maybe, but a lot of it was very interesting and insightful.  For instance, I learned what Boxing Day is. I had no idea, but it is a day for giving, stemming back metal boxes that were placed in churches on December 26th. These metal boxes were first brought to the British Isles by Roman soldiers who kept the money they earned from gambling in them. And somehow these boxes found their way into churches as a way to gather special offerings on the Feast of St. Stephen. And interestingly, most Americans, like me, know nothing about this tradition. That story was one of the theories about the origin of Boxing Day. There is at least one more theory that you will need to read the book to find out about or do your own research, I suppose.

Another very interesting discover to me was the origin of the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas". This song was written by priests in the Catholic church as a code song. It was written during a time when Catholicism was outlawed with threat of persecution and so the priests wrote this "funny" song as a way of expressing their beliefs. "My true love" is Jesus with the partridge in the pear tree being symbolic of His death on the cross. The partridge was one bird who would die for her babies. That was so intriguing to me.

And the last little story I want to hint at is the where Xmas originated. Today, among some Christians, Xmas is bad, it's taking Christ out of Christmas, but really Xmas originated with the Christians. Go figure that out.

So this book was very interesting to me to hear about the many details of Christmas and how they originated and what they mean. I highly recommend it if you like to know the why behind things. Ace Collins has also written a a book called "Stories behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas" as well as two other books containing the stories behind well-loved songs.

I received this book from Book Look Bloggers and was not required to write a positive review.